I think that’s the big thing. You cant just pick a team and go with them when you don’t have one. I’ve been in Denver for over 10 years now, and still have a hard time rooting for anything non-Houston. Took me til about 3 years ago to finally adopt the Avs as my team. Love em, but if Houston gets a team, Illl have to jump on. And I agree with your friend, hockey is probably the only sport where the in-person experience is soooooo drastically better than the alternative. Basketball is my favorite sport, so that will always win for me, but hockey is just different. I am always down to go to a hockey game. It’s like a smaller scale, more intimate, EPL game. Singing All The Small Things, arm in arm, with 20k people, while your team dominates the ice is unrivaled.
There’s no Les Alexander to stop this from happening plus do we have to upgrade Toyota center to Lexus center ? @J.R. @RasaqBoi
An NHL game is a pretty good experience but you have to have a hockey culture for that kind of experience. That the Coyotes are thinking about moving is because there isn’t that kind of culture in Phoenix.
Yeah...no. Tell me about the "hockey culture" in Las Vegas, SoCal, Dallas, Nashville, Florida, Carolina, etc....
Yes the NHL massively expanded to many cities outside of the North. Doesnt mean they have hockey cultures even with good teams. A winning product does help and Tampa Bay has been able to keep a winning team. If they done do well I doubt they would draw. For example the Wild still sell out even when the team isn’t good because this is a hockey culture with a lot of people growing up with hockey from little league to college. Without a good team there is little reason to watch hockey in AZ just becaue of traditions
The sunbelt markets have had NHL teams for at least 30 years now. I’ve been hearing that entire time how it won’t work and it’s not real hockey culture etc. But aside from Atlanta they all still have their teams. It’s so awful that they’ve all had teams for decades now. I want Houston to be that awful.
There's also no northern transplants among the 8 million people in the Houston metro area. Apropos of nothing, wiki just learned me that the Crookston Pirates, which is an epically great team name, were a minor league baseball team in Minnesota 100 years ago.
I’m a progressive in many respects but am a traditionalist in others. Yes the sunbelt has NHL but the appreciation of Hockey isn’t the same. They’ve had some good players and teams with the Lightening doing very well. Good for Tampa but and people like winners. It’s not where hockey is in the fabric of life. When you see kids playing hockey outside on a frozen pond you’ll understand. For people outside of the North the closest I can think of is if the English Premier league were to decide to expand to the US. A team might do very well but it wouldn’t be the same.
I grew up in Houston and still love the place but lyrics like this make no sense for Houston. on a more substantial point Houstonis already a fickle sports city with the Stros and Rockets often failing to draw when they are not doing well. If the Houston Coyotes aren’t doing well do your think they’re going to drawing well?
